food safety and the government

Not that I am prone to trying to publicize the wrong-doings of Republicans (okay, maybe I am) but there was an excellent op-ed piece by Eric Schlosser (of Fast Food Nation -read the book, don't see the movie) in the NYTimes. Slow Food LA has saved a pdf of the article on their site so you can see it without worrying about the date you found this post or creating an account with the paper.

He points out that since Bush (yes, a little more republican bashing, I apologize but I couldn't help myself) was elected to office, major lobbyists for various food industries have been given positions of regulatory power in the government while the budget for the FDA has been cut to the extent that they now only have money to perform 10% of the number of inspections they were performing in the 70's.

And we wonder why there seem to be so many health risks associated with eating these days.